“Good without a God?” is a ridiculous question since the idea of what one person’s god requires as “good” may be seen as not good in the eyes of what another person’s god requires!

I see more confused theists so trapped in their own bubble that they can’t look objectively at how ridiculous a question it is. “Good without (the Christian) God?” or “Good without (the Hindu) Gods?”, those questions make sense but making it “a” God is ridiculous.

http://cafeofthecosmicdance.blogspot.com/ Paul Sunstone

Well, I wouldn’t want to be too good — either with or without god.

http://cafeofthecosmicdance.blogspot.com/ Paul Sunstone

Good without God? I’ll think about that when I get some free time. At the moment, I’m too busy slaying the Midianite men and raping the Midianite women in order to fulfill the commandment of my Lord.

http://www.facebook.com/mujica.alex Alejandro Mujica

I think it’s a simple matter for them to ponder since to them there’s only one god, the supposed creator of truth and morals (since they believe he created everything, anyway).

Charles Black

Wait this is for real right? This story is reminiscent 0f the church who put up a billboard which you’d expect from an atheist or sceptic group “Don’t believe everything you hear” is what I remember.

Kevin Hueter

I like how they didn’t deface the poster to get the point across. Now if we could only teach the god fearing people to be good like that.

Gunstargreen

I like how it pretends its asking a question but is just going to be a lecture promoting more misunderstanding about atheists.

Taeubchen

Why are so many people bad with God?!?!?

Taeubchen

Why are so many people bad with God?!?!?

http://hauntedtimber.wordpress.com/ timberwraith

Notice the fine print at the bottom of the poster:

The Veritas Forum seeks to engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life.

This tells me two things. First, if you don’t believe in a god, there is something wrong with you. Second, the fine print implies that if you don’t believe in the right god, there is something wrong with you. Hence, atheists and agnostics are defective, morally corrupt beings and we can only overcome this “deficiency” if we believe in the correct god. Since they don’t believe in the god of Christianity, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, pagans, and everybody else are also defective and morally corrupt.

This is what dominant groups love to do. They expound upon the inherent superiority of their kind and dismiss others as defective people who are unworthy of the same social status as members of the dominant group.

It would be great to round up people from various forms of non-belief and non-Christian faiths, fill the audience, and then ask the panel of speakers exactly what they think of people who don’t embrace Christianity’s god. I think it’s important to be clear in challenging the privilege, prejudice, and arrogance that is inherent in the notion that everyone is defective except for Christians.

ORAXX

You don’t have to read an awful lot of history to realize people haven’t been especially good with god either. The bloody, gory history of Europe is largely, the history of Christendom.

http://annainca.blogspot.com/ Anna

The Veritas Forum is a national group that brings speakers to various colleges in order to discuss the “relevance of Jesus Christ to all of life.”

This is actually rather amusing when you consider the billions and billions of people who have lived and died without ever hearing about Jesus Christ. He wasn’t particularly relevant to them, was he?

http://twitter.com/Crommunist Crommunist

Pro tip: there are a wide variety of less nakedly racist, sexist, ableist and generally assholish Nobel Prize winners who you can quote than James Watson. Kind of undermines the whole “we are good without God” thesis when you press someone who’s not really a very good person as the (literal) poster boy for your position.

AHASLO

This particular poster was intended to be part of a series including many far less controversial individuals. If you have any people in mind, please, respond with their names and we’ll run a campaign with them as well.

Watson is deserving of a great deal of criticism, but he has also advanced the scope of human knowledge while also being involved in many social activist causes. Scientists and Nobel Prize winners without involvement in social activism are more common, and we wanted to try to associate social activism, not science, with atheism for this campaign. Watson’s anti-nuclear weapons and anti-war stance were attractive for that reason. That was why we chose him for one, of many, posters.

James Watson, the geneticist credited with the co-discovery of the structure of DNA, has abandoned a book tour in Britain after suggesting that he thinks black people may be less intelligent than whites.

In an interview with the London-based Sunday Times, published on 14 October, the 79-year-old said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really”.

After the comments were picked up by other media on 17 October, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, New York, announced that it was suspending Watson from ‘administrative duties’ as chancellor of the Watson School of Biological Sciences there.

Watson said he regretted his comments, but criticism from senior US colleagues was unsparing. “He has failed us in the worst possible way,” said Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists. “It is a sad and revolting way to end a remarkable career.”

From an editorial by the same publication:

Watson certainly has a track record in making distasteful remarks. He has on many previous occasions voiced unpalatable views tinged with racism and sexism, ranging from a desire to see a world full of genetically engineered pretty girls to his belief that sex drive is related to skin colour. He has been largely indulged over the years, mostly in light of his towering achievement of 54 years ago in helping to deduce the structure of DNA, his ensuing Nobel prize, and his role in founding the Human Genome Project.

ouIs it me, or does this guy sound quite terrible? Genius and pacifist activism, as awesome though they might be, do not excuse having such reprehensible views of humanity. He made an enormous contribution to the field of genetics, but nevertheless, his bigoted views of humanity disqualify him as someone who deserves to be lauded as a leader and a voice for scientific inquiry, atheism, and skepticism. To put this guy forth as proof that folks are good without god? Not a good choice. You’ve given religious folks ammunition for ripping us apart.Given the recent series of blow ups over sexism in the atheist/skeptic community, I think folks should give such slip-ups a little more thought. Would y’all really like to see more people of color and women in these communities?Really?

Timberwraith, I offered some thoughts on this above as to specifically why we chose Watson for one of our posters and as you mention those specific reasons, I think we can all agree that there Watson isn’t *all* bad.

Now, with that said, you’re absolutely right. It is a mistake to focus on someone with his background. I can tell you right now that our group, and our officers are committed to fighting racism, sexism and prejudice in all forms. Please take a look at our about page, where we tried to make this as explicit as possible.

I can say, specifically that the recent controversies surrounding diversity in the secular community have been very influential in how AHA! approaches these topics, and that while Watson was a mistake for the reasons you suggest, that someone could interpret his being featured on our poster as an endorsement of his prejudice is something we are taking very seriously and working to fix.

Let me also say that what I am saying is not merely words, but that our group is pursuing active involvement with the GLBT alliance, Gender Equity Center, Sexual Assault recovery and Prevention, and various other groups who fight discrimination on campus.

If you have any specific suggestions for how we can do better, please let us know.

http://hauntedtimber.wordpress.com/ timberwraith

Thank you for your quick, thoughtful reply. It’s a welcome change from the denial and excuse-making that I’ve seen take place in atheist/skeptical spaces during the past year or so.

http://friendlyatheist.com Richard Wade

Aside from the objections to Watson already raised, there is another reason you should reconsider this particular poster with this particular quotation:

Oh no, absolutely not… The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don’t have to understand anything, no physics, no biology.

I wanted to understand.”

The first line in that quote seems at first glance to be answering “No” to the question at the top of your poster, “Good without god?”

My initial reaction was “What???” Only after I noticed “is” in the line “James Watson is” did I realize that his first words are answering some unknown yes-or-no question. Why are you including that first part before the elipsis? It is apparently a fragment of some completely unrelated conversation.

The rest of the quotation that you selected does not seem related to the question at the top either. What does not understanding physics, biology, or whatever he meant by “anything” have to do with being good with or without a god?

The only answer to the question of his being good is the last thing that is visually noticed, the caption under Watson’s photo mentioning his anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons and environmentalist activism.

A very confusing poster.

Anh

My bf and I were discussing that this morning.

Enough ire is directed at atheists already. Do we really need to make a bigot one of our poster children?

Anonymous

I teach at Cal Poly, where AHASLO is, know some of them well (Hi all!), but even going beyond that bias, anyone can see that they owned right up to the mistake, just like we all hope we would, too, in a similar situation.

And the best thing is, it really doesn’t cost them anything to admit their mistake. I know they truly believe in the best type of diversity, would stand firmly against the worst things Watson has said, so it doesn’t cost them anything to reaffirm those stances.

AHASLO may need editorial help with their posters, but their intellectual posture, not to mention their hearts, is in the right place.

http://friendlyatheist.com Richard Wade

I concur.

Dan

Yeah, what a terrible choice. Watson would be a fantastic choice for a “Can you be a good scientist without God?” reply, but he is terrible for a response to “Can you be good without God?” Why in the world would anyone choose someone who is well known for blatantly sexist and racist comments as a moral example? This poster will be laughable to anyone familiar with Watson, or anyone who knows about Wikipedia. Cal Poly Alliance of Happy Atheists, way to make the Christians point for them!

GoodWithoutGod

Everyone is already good without god, some just do not believe it yet.

AHASLO

No, Anh, we(AHASLO) don’t. It was a combination of many factors that led to that poster being posted, and it was a mistake. We’re working to fix it, in addition to our previously planned activism with various diversity groups on campus.

AHASLO

And thank you timberwraith for your thoughts on the matter. I know many in our group felt similarly to you about the recent denialism in the secular community, and we all felt it was important to “own up to our mistake”.

Ahaslo

Thank you Richard for your comments. That is another issue entirely, and we’ll be sure to take note of that in future poster designs.

With respect, this sounds a bit like the common objection that religious fundamentalists give so much to charity. Actually, it sounds a lot like that.

Since you asked for a suggestion, how about Ted Turner? Not a Nobel Prize winner, but still a nice person.

http://www.facebook.com/robert.vroom Robert Vroom

I do not think that the question being asked is “Can we be good without believing in God?” (although they may be trying to get some buzz going with the wording). As a Christian I would say “Of course a person can be good without believing in God, God gave a conscience to Christians, Atheists, Jews, etc.” The correct question is, “Can objective good exist if there is no God.”

If there is no God, morality is strictly a development of evolution. It is nothing but the rules that have best allowed groups of animals to survive and thrive. If this is all there is to morality, it is only wrong to murder children because societies that allow child killers to run around free are less likely to survive. Why was Hitler wrong? Because we said he was wrong and beat him. If he had won and killed everyone who disagreed with him, he would have proved that he was right (given a strictly evolutionary framework). In such a framework, the only thing that determines right and wrong is survival.

If there is a moral law that transcends society, there must be a moral law giver that transcends society and made this law.